


Bloom

by mia_ugly



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, the Sexy Side-Effects of Lead Poisoning (Rated E)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27054064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/pseuds/mia_ugly
Summary: James Fitzjames wakes up, choking on petals.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 48
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A very very belated birthday gift for someone with all the stories to tell. Sorry about the rust on this. The world is the better and the lovelier for your voice in it.
> 
> (Thank you to soft_october, pinehutch, and glowcrizzle for your support and feedback and skillz. Chapter 2 is finished. Just giving it the old frantic read-through before posting in the next day or so.)

_ Tell us _

_ what is written _

_ in the flesh of us. _

— Joseph Fasano, “The Lions of Orange County” 

_ Light a new candle and tell me a story. _

_ Any kind you’re willing to tell. _

_ It doesn’t have to be a love story. Some nights that sort of story feels profane in its sweetness - too much sugar in it, too many flowers (what good are those in times like these?)  _

_ I don’t need a happy ending, not at this late hour. Not with a fire dying in its grate, not with the woodpile so low. _

_ Anyway, we know how this one ends already (but perhaps it will be different in your telling. Perhaps there's still hope, however faint and far off.) _

_ Start simply. _

_ Start with - a man (he doesn’t need to be a man, but in this story, he is). Make him beautiful. Or worse - beautiful once, before too many long winters ate away at the shine of him. Don’t start at the beginning when his shoes were polished and every horizon still had the pink of sunrise on it. That’s a story meant for softer weather.  _

_ Longer days. _

_Make it worse._

_Give him hope. Let him have map-maker's hands, certain they'll know the way home just by touch. Give him a head full of stories, and a tongue that tells them sweetly. Give him a heart (buried but still beating.)_

_ Make it worse.  _

_ Make him a man in love. _

**_Part One: Roots_ **

Three nights after the fire, Francis finds him in his cabin.

For three nights, James has lain awake for fear of dreams, with only smoke to fill his stomach. Three nights spent counting numbers and names, and being sick into a basin, and praying that Mister Bridgens asks no questions in the morning.

James knows there is no place for self-pity here, at the edge of the known world. His personal recriminations will bring no man back from the dead.

He knows that his chest feels heavier with each passing day, Doctor Goodsir’s obscene diagnosis more evident in every rattling breath.

And that night, when there is a decisive rap on his door, James knows without a word that it is Francis.

(“ _ Remove your masks. Let us look one another in the face as men.” _ )

Damn it all to hell.

James briefly considers ignoring it. It’s not as though Francis will lament the loss of his company; James knows what his captain thinks of him well enough by now. He does not need to be reminded of all the ways he should have done better, and what a ridiculous figure he’s become (though it may be no less than he deserves.)

The knocking comes again.

Well. James sighs, blinks away a perpetual headache. This conversation will happen tonight or tomorrow or the night after that; best get it over with. He forces himself to stand, to smooth the creases from his shirt. He glances in his mirror as he moves toward the door, reluctantly smooths his hair into some semblance of dignity. He was considered handsome once. Considered charming. There was a time when he made people laugh, when ladies commented on the shine of his smile, and men - some men - gave a keen eye to his narrow silhouette. He is certain this was true. That it meant something.

It was a long, long time ago. 

Francis is waiting for him in the doorway to the cabin, arms clasped behind his back like he’s ready for morning inspection. Frost has bitten the tips of his hair silver and his nose is pink from the cold. He is the same man he’s always been. Rough-skinned and unremarkable. There is no reason for the sight of him to twist in James’ stomach like a marling spike.

“Commander.” Francis gives a nod of greeting, comes inside without asking for an invitation. “May I sit?”

James gestures to a chair at his small fold-down table, suddenly realizing that Francis has never set foot in his private rooms. They immediately seem shabby and too personal (James keeps letters and sketches, collects odd bits of shell and stone, goes through his life like it is already a museum. His aunt called him sentimental, though he disagreed with that assessment - and even if it _was_ true once, it isn’t any longer. The more he remains on this ship, the more he feels that tender part of him turning to flint. The man who pressed flowers between the pages of books, and knew how to flatter every person in a room, and could laugh.)

Manners would dictate that he offer Francis something, but he has nothing to offer. Besides - Francis would probably bite his own fingers off rather than accept something from James’ hand. Instead, James takes the other chair at the table, very aware of the walls around them. Surely they haven’t always been this close? 

“You were expected on  _ Terror  _ this evening,” Francis says. His blunt fingers drum quietly on the tabletop, as if he was a concert pianist in another life. James wants to scoff at the image, but the humour in it doesn’t quite settle. Francis is arguably a better captain now than Sir John ever was, and he hasn’t even been sober a month. The knowledge makes something sharp happen to James’ mouth, like paper being folded. 

He has years of misjudging Francis Crozier to account for, and he does not know if he is up to the task.

“I was - not well.” 

“Aye, I know.” Francis gives him a brief glance. It’s a look James has seen too many times before. An appraising look, and one which finds him wanting.

“I did send word.” 

Francis nods, returning his eyes to the table. In the silence, James listens to the creak of the ship as the pack clenches tightly around it. It feels like the creak of his bones, the cabin slowly closing in on the both of them until James is squeezed into a fine powder.

Francis stops drumming his fingers. His hand squeezes into a fist. “How long do you plan to be unwell?”

“I - beg your pardon.”

“What happened to those men,” Francis continues haltingly. He swallows, and no,  _ no, _ James does not want to hear it - “It was not your fault.”

James laughs at that, a horrible sound to his own ears. “So you’ve come to absolve me then?” He knows too well what blame he bears in the tragedy. Had Francis been with them, he would never have allowed such an event to take place, let alone come to its grim end. “It was my idea. From the start, it was my doing. Of  _ course _ it is my fault.”

“Doctor Stanley was - you did not compel him.” There is an uncommon gentleness in Francis’ tone. It feels like soft hands around James’ throat, a choking sort of kindness. “You need not carry this.”

“I put our men in a vulnerable position. I -” Beneath James’ tongue something soft and wet settles like a snowflake. “I know what I did, Francis.”

Francis opens his mouth to speak but James cuts him off.

“I am not asking for your reassurance. Or your pity.” He forces himself to look at Francis as he speaks, not to shrink with fear or shame. “God, I want that least of all.” 

There is an odd tug beneath his ribcage as James holds the man’s pale-eyed gaze. The sensation of something shifting. 

The reach of tentative roots.

“You don’t have it. Though I dare not ask when you last slept.” 

“Does it matter?”

“It  _ does _ matter, very much.” Francis folds his hands, and James studies the shape of them. Rough and solid and capable, like everything else about Francis. His hands are as scarred as his face, but they are steadier now than they’ve been in weeks. “In a few months’ time, we are to lead these men out of here. They’ll have to follow us, to trust us.”

“Apologies if my manner of  _ grieving _ is not to your liking.” The words are out of his mouth in a defensive rush, before he can temper the bitterness. “Would that we could all be as dispassionate as our captain.”

For a moment, Francis doesn’t react. Then he tilts his head back, considering. There’s something of a smile curving his mouth. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even seem upset, merely waits out James’ sudden flare of anger. 

That should make James even angrier. A year ago, it would have.

They have a history between them like a blackberry hedge, all tangled leaves and thorns the colour of rust. A history of resentment and desperation, of bruised cheekbones and split knuckles. There were moments where James thought he might have  _ hated _ Francis, hated that the man had it in him to be  _ so much better _ , but was content to be hopeless and sullen and stinking of whiskey. There were moments when James wanted to shake him, to grab him by his collar and pin him in place, to force Francis to look at him, to - to do  _ something - _

But James is not that man anymore. That sort of fire has long gone out.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I know. Of course you’re right. I will - do better.”

“Get some sleep and it will be enough for me.” Francis gets to his feet, their brief conversation apparently at an end (thank God for that.) “I’m sure the good doctor could give you something to help, should you wish it.”

James has been spending too much time with the doctor of late, though Francis is not aware of that. No one knows except Bridgens, and James trusts him not to speak of it. 

“I’ll muddle through alone, thank you.”

He should rise and see Francis out, should remember what it felt like to fancy himself a gentleman. Instead he remains seated, collapsed in on himself like a child’s broken toy. The night stretches out before him, a darkness that burns the palms of his hands and screams in a voice he recognizes and -

There is a tentative pressure on his shoulder. 

James looks up to see Francis standing beside him. This close, the man smells like damp wool and kerosene, and the warmth of his hand bleeds through the weave of James’s sweater. James wants to lean into it, this brief moment of human contact. 

But of course he does not (a single press of fingers, then the warmth retreats.) 

“Not alone.” The captain’s voice is soft and slightly unsteady. Clearly unused to offering kindness.

“Yes, of course. Of course. Thank you.”

When Francis turns to go, James is surprised to see a flush of pink at his cheekbones - a trick of the lamplight, perhaps, or Francis’s usual broken complexion. The captain does not seem the type to blush.

“I’ll expect you tomorrow then,” Francis says from the doorway. “Commander.” 

He hesitates for a moment before nodding to himself, closing the door behind him. James absently touches his own shoulder to see if it’s still warm.

It is.

And his mouth fills with red. 

It happens in the space of a moment. James folds over, coughing against the sudden flood of it, coughing until it spills across the table and into his lap. It is the red of bloody snow smeared behind Sir John’s body, the red of claret held up to a candle under glass, the red of an ill-meaning sky over the Aegean Sea, the red, the red of  _ petals  _ -

James coughs until he can breathe again.

And the moment he can breathe, he knows.

Not  _ what _ is killing him, not the how or why of it, but the  _ who.  _ God above, the  _ who _ (the worst of every interrogative).

“No,” he says out loud, flinching at the hoarse sound of his voice.

_ No.  _ Not - not this. Not now. Not this man.

James cannot be in love with Francis Crozier.

_(Take this tale back to an earlier time. Before the fire, before the flood, when James still tasted glory in his mouth._

_ It has been four months since Sir John was lost, four months since their story changed from a glorious adventure to a tragedy. _

_ But James still holds out hope for a worthy ending.  _

_ Melting ice. Open sea. His captain's warm regard and respect and admiration. There is still time, yet, to win it. There is time. _

_And that night, in the dark of October, more curious than fearful - he finally takes the matter to Goodsir.)_

“You say -” The doctor’s dark eyes blink behind his spectacles. “You - you  _ found _ this.”

_ Found it _ is indeed a way to put it. Found it at the back of his throat,  _ found it _ stopping his airflow,  _ found it  _ wet with saliva and blood on his pillow case. 

That had never happened before. Nothing to that extent.

“Choked on it, rather.” 

In the dim lamplight, the small, tightly closed flower in the doctor’s hand looks almost black. It could be a clot of blood held between his thumb and forefinger, could be the heart of a rabbit. 

“And there have been others like it?”

James nods tightly, though it was only ever petals until the previous night. Never anything as substantial as what Goodsir holds in his hand. When it first started, James saved them all like some sort of lovelorn schoolboy. The habit only lasted a few weeks before the novelty wore off (there would always be more petals to save, and there always were.)

“When did it begin? The first - um - symptoms.”

“I cannot recall.” ( _ This is a lie. )  _ “But it has been months now. One night I went to sleep with a - touch of headache, and the next morning there was a rose petal on my pillow.”

“This isn’t a rose,” Goodsir says, spinning the blossom by the nub of its stem. “It is a peony.”

For some reason, that makes James laugh. 

It’s a startled, broken laugh, but laughter is thin on the ground these days, and whatever the quality, it feels good. (A peony.  _ Thank God, _ at last we know.)

“Are you a botanist now, Mister Goodsir?

“I might have been, once.” The doctor smiles in that way he has, as if it’s an embarrassing thing to be caught happy. “But, er - no. My mother grew these when I was a boy. I remember the look of them when they were about to bloom - just like this.”

“I’ve never seen a peony that colour. The dark red.”

“It isn’t very common. May I keep this?” 

James shrugs. He does not particularly care; he’ll be coughing up more.

Goodsir has James unbutton his shirt, places the cold metal of the stethoscope against his skin. Looks down his throat, takes his temperature. 

“There is certainly something obstructing your breathing. But congestion is easily dealt with. We’ll sort you out.” There’s a brittleness in Goodsir’s voice, a delicacy that speaks of subterfuge. James is fairly certain he is not hearing the whole truth of it, and that is - unexpected.

Surely this isn’t anything to be frightened of. It’s rose petals, for God’s sake (or peony petals,  _ fine. Enough. _ ) 

“What is it?” he asks, “Have you seen it before? Is it contagious?”

“It is not,” Goodsir says slowly, “At least - I don’t believe so. Forgive me, I did not think that such an ailment was - was -”

“Yes?”

“Real.” The doctor looks startled at the sound of the word, eyes wide as if he was not the one who said it.

James sets that aside for the moment. He is not prepared to deal with the possibility of some fantastical illness. Perhaps he’ll spin straw into gold next, perhaps he’ll grow fur and fangs and wall himself up in a forgotten castle.

“Is there a name for it?”

“I -“ Goodsir pauses, and then shakes his head. “I believe so. But - would you grant me a few days time? If that’s all right? There are some resources I would consult. Meanwhile, I’ll give you something for the cough.”

James leaves the sick bay quietly, feeling slightly unbalanced as he dresses and prepares to head out into the cold. He is expected on  _ Terror _ that evening, and he is not looking forward to seeing the miserable Francis Crozier (particularly not with a mouth full of peony petals. With any luck, Crozier will be too drunk to notice). 

He should have taken the matter to Doctor Stanley. He would have been more direct, set James’ mind at ease, not nattered on about peonies. He would have assured James it was a small matter, no cause for alarm.

Well. Nothing to be done for it now. 

James is glad for the black and starlit journey to the other ship, the sound of his boots crunching on the ice. He tries to piece together the constellations overhead, even as the wind makes his eyes sting and water. He tries to remember the stories he used to know about them, Gods and heroes, set into the sky to live forever (there were too many myths in his childhood.)

Hedges and Wilkes are with him that evening, eyes scanning the blank landscape for any sign of the creature, but Fitzjames’ thoughts are elsewhere. He breathes as deeply as he can in the frozen air. Let his teeth shatter, he is past caring.

Whatever is inside of his lungs, perhaps the cold can kill it.

_ (Desire and terror have always been bound tightly together for him. That first spark of interest, that first lingering glance, is always accompanied by something much less pleasurable. Desire means nausea, means an ache deep in his stomach. It isn’t the law or the lash that frightens him (he has an eye for men who share his secret, men whose eyes hold his just a moment too long). It isn’t the threat of violence (he’s seen enough of it and can hold his own if needs must). It isn’t shame either, some misbegotten notion that he’s wrong or perverse, that his interests in the bedroom are of any consequence at all to whatever God a man might choose to pray to. _

_ James is ashamed of many, many things - but not this.  _

_ The terror he feels is tangled on other barbs entirely.  _

_ Say he met a man, and took him somewhere quiet and discrete. This man might want to peel James’ jacket off, unbutton his shirt, bare his skin. This man might ask James questions, might want to know more of him. “Where did you grow up? What is your middle name? Where did you get this scar, and this one, and this, tell me -” _

_ Desire comes with the risk of intimacy, an evening with the lights kept on. This is not something James can afford. His pockets are empty, he’s at the table on credit and charm as it is.  _

_ So. If desire and terror are entwined together in his skull and his chest, it might make sense - whatever sense there is to be found here - that love would be similarly entangled.  _

_ That James’ body might sense the first quiet stirrings of it, and immediately grow thorns.) _

He does not catch Goodsir alone again for nearly a fortnight. It is fine enough; James is only coughing at night, and he’s maintained the impression of good health among the men (and with his captain, more importantly. Though James could doubtlessly ride the Tuunbaq naked into Francis’ cabin before Francis would pay him any mind. He wouldn’t expect the man to notice something as insignificant as a cough). 

In the sick bay, Goodsir is polite but clearly uncomfortable. His findings come in fits and starts for long that James begins to lose his patience. 

“You must understand. These are - stories, only. I’ve never treated anyone with the affliction. Truth be told, I thought it was a - a myth.” He gestures to a notebook on his desk, propped up between a few old textbooks. James can smell the mildew of their pages from across the room. “They mention - _only_ mention it - in _A_ _Physician’s Counsels._ And - and Rueff writes of something similar in his - travel diaries, but it’s in reference to a local - superstition, I suppose you’d say. Not direct observation of a - a patient, or anyone -”

“You need not fear my delicacy, Doctor,” James says at last, managing a smile he does not feel. Tact is one thing; prevarication is quite another. 

“Yes of course. I believe you are suffering from - a, a -” Goodsir sighs, taking off his spectacles. He rubs the bridge of his nose. “It's a form of -”

“I would know your diagnosis before I expire from it.”

“Of love sickness.”

The world slows for a moment. Then jerks violently forward. James feels seasick from the sudden motion. His ears ring as if someone fired a pistol just beside him. The doctor is hunched in embarrassment, head lowered as if he has just delivered James’ death sentence and James cannot stop himself -

He bursts out laughing.

Goodsir’s eyes go wide with surprise, and that only makes James laugh harder. The sound rasps from his lungs like a knife against a whetstone. 

“I - beg your pardon,” he says when he can speak again. “You said - love sickness? That is what you said.” 

“Yes.”

“But that is not - it isn’t -” James shakes his head. Apparently Goodsir has a sense of humour, against all previous evidence. “That is not a thing one dies from. _ Love sickness _ isn’t -”

“As I’ve said, Commander, I thought it was a myth until - well, now. But the symptoms - um, flowers. In the lungs of one whose love is - is unrequited. Or unspoken. The accounts suggest -”

“Unrequited _ love _ .” James might still be laughing or he might be scoffing or he might be staring slack-jawed at the doctor; he cannot tell what his face is doing. Cannot feel the muscles of it. “Are you - joking? This is not a fairytale, not a story for children. You’ve seen the flowers, I have physical proof -”

“You do, of course. The flowers are the primary symptom -”

“I wish to see these firsthand accounts. Who provided them, the Brothers Grimm?”

“Do you speak German? I could translate for you.”

“I don’t need a damned  _ translator _ , I need a doctor.” James stands up, suddenly angry. Stanley would never have fed him this sort of rubbish. “So you are telling me, in your experience as a medical man, a professional -” James has to stop for a moment. Catch his breath, slow his pulse. “That - I am sick with unrequited love. From  _ rose petals _ .”

“Peonies,” Goodsir says quietly. 

“Yes, of course,  _ peonies.  _ How could I forget this critical point.” James runs his hands through his hair, recoils at the cling of sweat to his scalp. “I’m expected to believe this?”

“I understand what it sounds like.” Goodsir doesn’t take offense, he never takes offense. He is all patience and empathy, and it sets James’ teeth on edge. “But I am telling you what I know.”

The man is unbearable in his kindness. James doesn’t understand why it makes him so unaccountably angry, a host of terrible imprecations rallying to his tongue.

But he does not speak a word of them.

Even as he stands there, rigid with scorn, he can feel his certainty slowly melting beneath him. Cracks spreading through the ice like vines. Water filling his boots.

He has seen things, since coming North. Seen things that he did not think were real. He would not have possibly believed in the Tuunbaq without the proof of his own eyes. Is this different? How could it be, when he can hold the petals in his fists every morning?

“Root them out,” he says, before he can change his mind. 

“Commander?”

“If there are flowers in my lungs.” James grew up surrounded by green. He’d watch the gardener at work sometimes, study the man’s large and patient hands, black-lined with soil. “If this is true, let us pluck them like we would any weed. Kill them with - with - vinegar. With salt.” 

“Yes of course, there are methods we could try. Many potential treatments - aside from the conventional cure, and if you -”

“The conventional cure?” James tastes hope for a moment. It is an unexpected flavour, one he doesn’t trust.

“Having one’s feelings - um.” Goodsir blushes. James had forgotten that men yet existed who could blush. “Known. Or - requited, rather.”

“ _ Ah _ .” The syllable sounds like ice cracking, and there is answering violence in James’ chest just from speaking it. Requited. Well. That’s that. “That is quite impossible, I’m afraid. My heart is entirely my own at present.”

“Truly?” Goodsir looks shaken. “Everything I’ve read about this ailment suggests - are you so certain -”

“Quite certain.” 

The truth of the matter (layered on top of all the other terrible truths) is that James Fitzjames - has never been in love. 

He’s had the occasional assignation, hurried affairs based entirely on discretion and proximity. But romantic love - no. He has not been burdened with that.

And thank God for it. He’s always counted it as a charm, a stroke of luck. It seems a ruinous sort of thing, love (James has always preferred to be adored rather than adoring.) 

Of course he has met men in the service who fancy themselves in love with the first person to smile at them, the first warm body to take them to bed. Men who pine and languish (men who propose to the same woman time and again, without shame. Without hope.)

How lucky James is to have escaped such inclinations.

“Unless one considers my passionate devotion to this ship, of course.” He puts on a watery smile, steers the conversation away from his personal history. “Though I doubt she’ll be convinced to love me back.”

“I don’t believe that an inanimate object would - um -” Goodsir, bless him, seems about to address the comment in earnest, so James stops him.

“I’m in jest, doctor.”

“Oh - yes, of course. Apologies, the available research in this area is quite limited. I’m trying to piece things together but - I could consult with Doctor Stanley?”

“ _ No _ ,” James says quickly. “No. I would appreciate it if this matter was kept between the two of us.”

“Of course, Commander. I only thought it might -”

James waves the suggestion away. He chose to come to Goodsir in the beginning, and this is where he will remain. The fewer people that know their commander is  _ sick at heart over unrequited love  _ (dear God) the better. “How might I have caught this? In your opinion.” 

“There is no catching it,” Goodsir says. “though it may be genetic. Do you know if anyone in your family suffered from a similar malady? Grandparents? Whether -”

“I do not.” James bites down on the  _ t  _ with a click of his teeth. His family, like his heart, is another subject they will not be discussing today. “And what is the prognosis?”

“There, there are many things that we might try, Commander. To delay the progression, um - slow the blossoming, I suppose. I won’t have you losing hope.” Goodsir’s voice is once again too kind. Too careful. James wants to laugh, but his mouth has gone strangely dry.

Goodsir can’t be serious.

“As good as that, then?” James murmurs, and the doctor says nothing. After a moment of this gentle and unbearable silence, James nods.

“Well then. Where shall we start?”

_ (This is how it happens, that first time. _

_ Lieutenant Gore’s party returns in pieces. There are no leads and there is no escape and James is alone in his cabin, exhausted by loss. But his thoughts are not of dying men, or leagues of ice, or Goodsir’s hands stained the colour of currants.  _

_ No. _

_ Instead, he thinks of Francis Crozier. The sound of Francis’ voice. Over and over again in James’s memory,  _ Terror’ _ s miserable captain speaks to that woman in her own language. Over and over again, his eyes meet James’s from across the room. His gaze is as calm as his voice, a river safe to swim in. _

_ James cannot breathe around the memory, and the very clear and unfortunate thought that rings in his ears:  _ Thank God Francis was there.

_ He has not thought that, nor had cause to, before tonight. _

_ Then there is something in his mouth, a sudden slickness between tooth and cheek. He feels a curious sort of panic as he withdraws it - wet and paper soft. The colour is a deep red, almost black - the same colour that coated Goodsir’s hands a few hours previous, climbed his pale shirt sleeves like vines. _

_ James thinks it is blood at first. A clot of blood. _

_ But it is not blood - there is no viscosity to its texture.  _

_ It is - a flower petal.  _

_ James stares at it. The sight of it, balanced on the tip of his finger, is almost more disturbing than blood. Blood, at least, would have some sort of explanation, however sinister. But this - _

_ “Must’ve found its way into one of the tins,” James murmurs to himself.  _

_ He keeps the petal, and writes of it in his journal. It will make a good story, at least, and he is pleased to have something to write about other than the - events of the evening.  _

_ He can already taste the story in his mouth: a dining room table, Bohemian crystal, fine china. The weight of perfume in his nostrils, his uniform brushed and buttons shining. “It was a rose petal,” he’ll say, and the ladies will laugh behind their gloved hands. “The Admiralty was so committed to keeping us civilized they were feeding us English roses.” The men in the room will shake their heads and chuckle at him. James puts the words away for a brighter, more pleasant gathering. _

_ Then Sir John dies, only days later. _

_ Their captain and their hope is pulled beneath the ice in a scream of ugly red.  _

_ And James runs out of every word but one:) _

No.

_ God _ , no - he is not in love with Francis Crozier.

He can’t even imagine it. Such a thing would be - 

It would be -

Anyway, they barely tolerate each other. It’s not - it’s nothing. Any grudging respect they’ve developed is new and fragile. Likely to be crushed beneath James’s bootheel if he puts too much weight on it.

Whatever Goodsir says about the petals in his throat, James is not in love.

(The most dangerous phrase in the Queen’s English:  _ and yet _ .)

It has been days since that night in James’ cabin, days since his mouth filled with petals at the touch of Francis’s hand.

Which means nothing, of course not. He’s  _ ill. _

And yet - he cannot leave the thought alone. He worries it like a rotten tooth, prodding it with his tongue as it bleeds, slow as dripping honey. He goes back through their history, replaying interactions with Francis that he’d overlooked. Was there something underneath them - in that urgent desire to have Francis see him? In his attempts to charm and entertain? (No, no, never. James lives to charm and entertain, he’s the same with everyone. Wants the same regard. Wants and wants and wants, there is no end to his hunger.)

If James was going to fall in love for the first damned time, it would not be now, at the edge of annihilation. It would not be with the ill-tempered Irishman who currently stands beside him on the deck of  _ Terror _ , watching the men around them pack up their lives.

If James were to fall in love it would be somewhere warm, he thinks. The scent of hibiscus in the air, a crowded market place, glasses of mahia across a cafe table. Or perhaps it would be in a garden. The man he loved would be beautiful, would kiss him beneath an archway of jasmine and clematis, and James would not care if the world was watching.

“Glad you’re feeling well,” Francis comments idly, breath ghosting through the frigid air.

James does not know how to reply to that. He isn't feeling well at all.

“Saw sense at last,” he says, ignoring the hoarseness of his voice.

Francis does not seem convinced. He casts a look at James that is appraising and strangely curious. James has to look away before he does something - rash. 

“Some of what these men have packed is… impractical at best, Francis.” He fixes his attention on the sailors in front of them, stowing away their belongings in burlap and timber. “This cannot hold.”

“It’s a long march, James. Things will drop away.”

Something tightens in James’s stomach at the thought. He can see the endless miles of ice stretched ahead of them like long sharp fingers. Each unnecessary crate packed feels like an extra mouth to feed, an extra hour of daylight gone, an extra risk they cannot afford.

“Have you no useless, precious things in your possession?” Francis says after a moment, the whisper of a smirk on his mouth. “Come now, tell me. Not a one?”

Good Lord - is the man  _ teasing _ him?

“I have no idea why you’d suggest such a thing.” James tries to ignore the odd flutter in his pulse, the heat clinging to his collar. “I’m a - sworn ascetic.”

Francis almost laughs at this, breathes out in a staggered way. “Oh, aye. I’ve seen your cabin. A regular monk.”

James snorts, surprised and reluctantly amused. He tries not to remember the warm presence of Francis in his room, and he tries not to look at Francis longer than he has to. He keeps Francis in the periphery of his vision like a solar eclipse, where his eyes cannot be burned. “What about you? Weighed down with fine china, I expect.”

“Yes, all of Mother’s tea cups. I cannot be parted with one of them.”

James laughs. It makes his dry lower lip split in the cold and he tongues at it, tasting salt and copper. Francis glances over at him for an instant before quickly looking away.

“Truth be told, I’d bring nothing with me so much as this ship. Carry her on my back if I thought I had the knees for it. Take her out of this bloody wasteland. Let her see the open sea one last time.”

James spends a moment imagining it. It isn’t so difficult. Francis has been shouldering this mission for months upon months, carrying the survival of the men as if it were his alone to bear. James can easily picture Francis bent double beneath the weight of  _ Terror _ , slowly lifting her from the ice. Taking one wrenching step and then another, like Atlas, bound by the incredible weight.

“How - poetic of you, Francis.”

Francis scoffs at this. “Yes. I’m a poet and you’re a monk.” 

His face has gone grave, and James feels a terrible desire to touch him. Wants to place a hand on his shoulder in comfort. In hope, even.  _ These ships will see the open sea again, _ he might say.  _ As will we.  _ (James could spin all manner of beautiful lies for this man if it meant that some of the darkness left his face.)

“Did I ever tell you,” he says instead, hands clenched into fists at his side (do not reach out), “that  _ I _ considered myself a poet. Once, for a time.” 

Francis immediately shifts his eyes. It makes James want to laugh out loud and absolutely devastate the man at cards. “So you are - aware of my finer works.”

"Um, I may have -" Francis chokes on nothing, on air, and a slow smile spreads across James’ face.  “Thomas and I may have -”

“Dear God.” James should have seen that coming. “Of course. Of course the pair of you would have taken great delight in my ignominy.”

“Delight is not the word that comes foremost to mind,” Francis mutters, and James does laugh at that.

“It may not have been my - only effort."

“ _ No, _ ” Francis whispers, more in protest than disbelief. “Tell me you haven’t a book published somewhere.”

“Not quite yet. Though -”

“I must hear this,” Francis says.

Wind biting at lips, leagues of ice surrounding them - James tells him. 

That night, alone in his cabin, he puzzles out the feelings that he does not have. 

He lies in bed, trying to imagine what about Francis would inspire interest.

The man is - clear headed. There, that’s something. Not exactly a sonnet, but it matters. He is honest, brutally so - or at least he’s never been caught out in a lie to James (and James knows the value of a lie, so honesty is a trait he can reluctantly admire).

There’s - possibly - something rather satisfying in the size of Francis. If one enjoyed that sort of thing. There’s something solid and warm to him, something that could be pleasing to gather in your hands, to clutch tight against you and  _ writhe _ \- 

There must be men and women who would appreciate that quality in a partner. Not James, but others. He frankly cannot imagine taking Francis into his bed.

But if he did imagine it. 

Which he does not.

But if he did - he could almost enjoy the weight of Francis on top of him. Holding him down, holding him still. (“ _ Hush, sweet one. I have you. I have you _ .”)

James could (but will not) imagine those capable hands making short work of his buttons, rough fingertips on the skin over his breastbone, the wave of his ribcage, the knots of scar tissue. He could imagine a hand on his throat, tilting his head back. Could imagine thin lips parting for James’ tongue (what would those lips look like kissed, bitten to fullness? What would they look like around James’ fingers, shining with saliva, what would they look like begging -)

James will not think about this. 

But he could. 

Could try to hear the broken cadence of Francis’ voice in the darkness, humming up against his throat. They would have to be quiet, wouldn’t they? Like all men at sea, it would have to be quick and furtive - no lingering over kisses, no slow mornings in bed. Francis might be desperate, shoving James’ trousers down, pushing his shirttails up (“ _ Is this what you want, then? Is that it? Is this why you drive me mad at all hours, because you want me to do this, to take you and use you the way you’re meant to be used? Is that right, James Fitzjames - God - look at you, desperate for it, dripping all over me  _ -”)

“Yes,” James whispers. He realizes with a start that he’s spoken out loud.

(“ _ Bet you’d taste just like honey, you delicious thing. I’ll be sucking you off my fingers all morning and no one will know, will they _ ?”)

“No,” James agrees, and his hand is suddenly at his hip bone, sliding -

He pulls it away from where he wants it. Clenches it into a fist, breathes through his gritted teeth.

No, he will not do this. Francis is his captain. The man is not for him, has none of his interest.

And it wouldn’t go like that.

Francis wouldn’t speak, would he. Not in that way - however wild and filthy James might be in his imaginings. Francis would be silent, the result of decades of finding pleasure in close quarters, alone or otherwise. Decades of stifled cries into fists or pillows, biting back any sounds that wanted to sing from his throat. 

Perhaps James would have to speak for the both of them. Beckon to each shudder, each gasp, lead them out of the dark woods with his teeth and his tongue and his hands. Francis might try to kiss him into silence but James would pull his mouth back, twist his head away. He would refuse to swoon like some proper lady, some Sophia bloody Cracroft, all perfect silence and folded hands. No. James would not let Francis forget who he was fucking. James would give orders (“there” and “there” and “like that”) James would hold back until Francis was begging him, James would -

Christ, he’s hard as iron at the thought of it. 

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself as he takes his cock in hand, squeezing his eyes shut against the humiliation of it all. It doesn’t mean anything, it will not reveal his sickness to the rest of the world. 

He moans, almost sobs in relief as he strokes himself, imagining someone else’s hand, someone else’s fingers in his mouth, someone’s lips against his ear, telling him all sorts of terrible stories (“ _ you’re so good for me, you’re so pretty, you’re so wanted - _ ”).

“Like - like that - Francis -” James gasps, spreading his legs beneath his sheets. He wants this over with quickly, wants the rush of pleasure to wring these thoughts from his mind and let him sleep. But the end will not come. The pleasure only builds and builds, leaving James hissing, back arched, sweat soaking his nightshirt and his hair. He can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop imagining the captain’s broad-shouldered back, his hands on James’ waist, turning him, holding him down. (“Inside me - inside me, please,” James might whisper, all want and shame, and Francis might curse against the back of his neck.)

He spends at the thought, come pulsing hot over his knuckles, face turned to the side to press into his pillow. It’s too much, too much, and it doesn’t end; James fucks his fist through it, gasping and mortified, his captain’s face behind his closed eyes, oh God, _oh God Francis_ -

Later, when he has recovered enough to stand on shaking legs, to clean himself off with his sodden nightshirt, he finds flower petals in his hair. 

He leaves them where they are.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**_Part Two: Petals_ **

_Terror_ and _Erebus_ stand in stark contrast to a sick grey sky as the crew walks out. If James were three years younger, he might have thought there was something romantic about it all, the ships silhouetted like Roman ruins, hands raised in farewell. A crumbling acropolis, a forgotten temple, a testament to Gods long vanished.

Someone will remember _us,_ James tells himself, and then tells himself that he believes it. Someone will remember the men of these ships, the living and the dead. 

Someone will remember him.

It has been three months of packing and preparation. Three months of tallying stores and meeting over lamplight and ignoring the nearly invisible bow of Francis’s upper lip. Three months of little sleep and no one in James’s bed (not even ghosts). 

It has been three months of Goodsir’s treatments, which suddenly seem to do nothing at all. James eventually read some of the man's medical texts (at least the ones in languages he could speak) and they say the same damned thing as the doctor.

A love sickness.

As if such a thing were possible. 

(“I should never have hit you,” Francis tells him.

It is one of the last command meetings before they depart. The other lieutenants have left for the evening, and James does not know why he hasn’t yet followed them. Trying to catch his breath, perhaps, before setting out into the cold. Trying to linger with the warmth of a teacup against his fingertips for a moment longer.

The sudden confession startles him.

“It was badly done,” Francis continues, eyes shifting. “And I have no excuses for it. You were only trying to help me see sense. Thank God for that.”

The captain seems so entirely different from the person who stole _Erebus’_ whiskey and lashed out in violence; the events of that night have almost slipped from James’ memory. Francis is not that man any more.

They are neither of them the men they were.

“Why speak of it now?” James asks.

“I -” Francis begins. Then he shakes his head. “I have wanted to say it.”

“Oh.”

“For some time. For - too long.”

“Oh.” The admission makes James feel uneasy. Or - unbalanced, or some other queer sensation, settling between his shoulder blades. He does not expect Francis to think of that night. He does not expect Francis to think of _him._ “Well. It is - it is in the past. And never fear, I’ve been in my share of dust ups over the years.”

“I dare say.”

“None of which look well on me, I assure you.”

“Oh?” Francis catches James’ eye over the rim of his tea cup. There’s a challenge in the arch of his eyebrow, and James feels - 

He doesn’t know what he feels (best not try to name everything. Leave some things silent).

Francis waits. James hesitates - before freeing a smile from the corner of his mouth.

“ _God._ All right. There was a - particular evening in Lisbon…”)

Harnesses strapped across his shoulders, James breathes deeply, tries to keep his heartbeat steady as he pulls the weight of their possessions behind him. He watches Francis trek sure-footed over the ice a few feet ahead, and his mouth goes dry with sudden pain (thorns digging into his lungs, winding up his trachea, trying to blossom.) 

But he is not in love.

The day seems to stretch forever, the eerie grey sky of perpetual winter and far North. James has to switch off with a seaman sooner than he expects. He’s unused to the physical labour, as others surely are. Another few days of it and he’ll be more at ease. There’s strength in him still. 

There is.

When they set up camp that evening on some Godforsaken patch of ice, Goodsir insists on visiting. He listens to James’ breathing in the privacy of his tent, and smiles in such a gentle way that James is instantly alarmed.

“What? What is it?"

“The symptoms are only progressing slowly. More slowly than I would have predicted." Goodsir makes a few scribbled notes in his journal. "It is good news. You are doing well."

He and Goodsir have different understandings of that phrase, but James is too tired to quarrel with him.

“I trust you have upheld your promise of discretion,” he says as he re-dresses, layer upon layer of moth-eaten wool against the teeth of the wind.

“Of course.”

“And that you will continue to do so. Even if - even if the worst happens -”

“That is - a long way off.” Goodsir closes his notebook, clearly pained by the thought. “And not a certainty by any means. You needn’t make plans yet.”

“Doctor.” James wets his lips, and hates the habit. Each swipe of his tongue reveals another cut or sore, unexpected and slow to heal. His mouth tastes like copper and his lips sting like salt. “Promise me. No one will know.”

“Of - of course, but -”

“You’re a medical man. You will tell them something else. Something - they will believe.” Something _Francis_ will believe; James does not say it, but it’s a near thing. “No one can know about the rest of it. Promise me.”

“I -”

“And when you are home and safe on English soil again, you can write all about it in your papers. Publish a book about this cursed petal business. Find fame and fortune - use my name, if you like.”

“Commander Fitzjames, I -”

“But not until then. Don’t -” James’ voice catches and he smiles to cover it up. “Don’t let him know.”

There is the beat of a heart before James hears what he said.

“Them.” He corrects himself, flushing. _Them_ , he meant to say. It’s a simple mistake, he misspoke, it means nothing. Still, he does not look up at he shrugs on his coat, afraid of how bright his cheekbones might be (the heat in this tent. It’s making James dizzy.) 

“Have you given any more thought to the, the -” Goodsir swallows. It seems very loud within the small space. “The other possibility we discussed? The - um, traditional cure that I mentioned. Perhaps - are you certain -”

“I am.” James cuts him off. “Entirely certain.”

Goodsir does not reply for a long time. James watches the man open and close his mouth, putting words together and rejecting them silently. Everything balances precariously in the space before he speaks, cut-crystal at the edge of the banquet table. 

_Does he know?_ The thought materializes inside James’ head like a squall, all waves and wind, but - no. James shakes the thought away. Goodsir doesn’t know anything; there is nothing to know. 

“As you say,” is all the doctor manages in the end. He leaves James alone with a vial of some handmade tincture and a tension headache that will not be rubbed from his temples. 

They find Fairholme’s sledge party the next day. 

James wants to scream or be sick but all he can do is stare. Stare and stare, unblinking, as the horror of it rots away at him, turning his gums black.

Worst of all is the voice in his head telling him he should have known. That if he had been better, he would have seen this coming. _Of course_ it was going to end like this. _Of course_ there isn’t a rescue. This isn’t one of the stories James will tell at a party, embellishing points with expansive hand gestures between sips of sherry. There is no glory to be found here. Not on the tines of this fork.

Not in his mouth.

“Eighteen miles. That’s all they made.” He can’t stop looking at Francis, and he can’t help the dull blade of panic carving into his voice. 

Francis looks back. 

God only knows what he sees in James’ grey face, but James clings to his steadiness like a rope in rough water. Tries to keep the colour of Francis’ eyes in mind any time he starts to panic, immerse himself in that sea. 

They leave the bodies of their former shipmates behind, carry on with a new grotesque secret wrapped around their necks. As they make their way back to the rest of the men, Francis touches James’ shoulder once, gives him an even look that James feels to the frozen soles of his feet (there is a flinch of lingering nerve pain in his old bullet wounds, his body remembering how easily it could be damaged.)

The world swims for a moment, but James stays upright, following Francis forward.

When he wipes his mouth, his sleeve comes away red. 

_(Take this tale back again, to earlier days yet._

_One of James's first memories is of green. Green muslin curtains blowing gently in the wind above his narrow bed, green grass beneath his hands, still round with baby fat. Green hills, rolling away from him at every side like waves._

_His childhood was green and it was tender. There was sunlight and flowers and stacks of books. There was the soft voice of his aunt singing in the kitchen, or the garden, or the library._

_They were good people, his uncle and aunt. Not many would have taken him in, but they did so with grace and kindness, and James grew up believing he was loved. Despite his bad beginnings, he was loved._

(“Do you know if anyone in your family suffered from a similar malady?”)

_James barely knew his father, and he did not know his mother, but he knew from an early age that she was dead. No one needed to tell him, he felt it, like something had been clumsily removed from beneath the first few layers of his skin. A chunk of wood, perhaps. A piece of glass. The main culprit excised, the slivers still lingering._

_Did his family speak of her? James has a vague memory of comments about his eyes, the colour of them. The fine-boned length of his hands._

_“Nothing like his father,” his uncle said once, and his aunt ‘hushed’ him quickly._

_And one time, in their rose garden, his aunt cutting flowers with a rusted pair of shears. The easy way her hands moved, like water through the air. The sad blanket of her gaze on James as she worked, thinking he was lost to his reading._

_His uncle’s hand on her shoulder, voice barely above a whisper. “The boy will be all right, love. Never fear.”_

_Did his aunt’s hand shake briefly around the stem of a red rose, letting it fall? Did she leave it on the grass, unrescued, until the petals curled at the edges, dying from thirst and neglect? Did this happen or did he dream of it?_

_James thinks - he thinks it happened._

_He tries to imagine a mother he can’t remember, but who must have cared for him once. When he closes his eyes, he sometimes sees waves of black hair and jacaranda blossoms spilling from a mouth the same shape as his. He wonders what happened to her. Wonders if she missed him before she died._

_He wonders if she might have loved anything enough to let it kill her.)_

They meet up with Lieutenant Little’s party on the mainland the next day. The pain in James’ chest has become steady, a toothache beneath his breastbone, and as they set up camp, he tries to stop himself from wondering whether this will be the last place he ever sees. 

Would it be so bad if it was? He scans the bleak horizon, the stony ground, and decides - no. Not here. Let him die somewhere with green in it.

When he at last collapses into his tent that night, his dreams have him bolting upright, choking against the darkness: the faces of once familiar men warped and disfigured by ice and decay. The great white beast nosing through the canvas of his tent, breath hot and rank upon his body. The slow curl of vines beneath his skin where veins should be, rippling outward, pushing at the borders of him (beset from without and within. What chance does he have?).

Then Seaman Morfin starts screaming.

At first, it feels like the lingering fragment of a nightmare. It takes James a long terrible moment to realize that what he is hearing is real. To pull himself from his bed and light a lantern and go confront whatever new horror awaits their camp.

He feels calm in the moment, though perhaps that’s not a surprise. He’s spent a lifetime rushing headlong into ruin in the hopes of finding glory in a beautiful, heroic death. Danger used to make him blossom.

Francis is already in the thick of things when James arrives. The captain is slow and even-voiced as he circles Morfin, telling him that he’ll make it home. That there’s time yet, hope even (James briefly considers geometry. The angles of bullets and sight lines and Francis’ body very carefully placed between James and a man with the rifle.)

“Seaman Morfin, lower your weapon.” James feels calm in the firelight of the camp, cold air needle-sharp against his neck. “That’s an order.”

He feels calm with Morfin's rifle pointed at him. He feels calm as it fires (only sparks manage to touch him, he's unhurt, alive, and there’s time enough for James to act, to step in front of Francis, to take the gun from Morfin’s hands, _save_ him, there's -)

Another shot rings out in the dark.

Morfin’s body hits the ground before James can take a single step.

The silence that follows is violent in its weight. The rest of the crew stand motionless, staring at what used to be a man they knew. Francis twists his head toward James for just a moment, and the expression on his face is one that James has never seen before.

Francis looks terrified.

“Carry Mr. Morfin to the stores tent. Bury him in the morning.” It sounds like there is something stuck in the captain's throat, like he hasn’t spoken in years. He takes a few steps toward the body of the seaman, but his feet are unsteady, the ground tilting beneath them. James feels the mad urge to rush forward and keep him upright. 

“Go back to your tents men,” Francis is saying. He is not himself, and it is obvious to anyone who’d care to look. James, damn him, cannot look away. “Get some sleep.” 

The gathered men reluctantly disperse, but James is stuck in place, a shipwreck trapped in coral. He stares at Francis, tries to think of something to say. Something reassuring. Some story to tell in which there are heroes and happy endings and not sick men begging for their friends to put them down.

But instead he just stands there, silent. And when Francis turns to leave, James stops him.

“A word, Captain,” he says, and he does not feel calm anymore. And he does not know what he would say if asked why. He only knows that this man shouldn’t be alone right now. That’s the beginning and the end of it. 

Francis nods.

The captain’s tent is dim with lamplight, the shadows stark and heavy across the floor. Francis gestures toward the single chair but James declines it, and Francis collapses into it himself. James has never seen the man look as tired. 

“What can I do?” James asks quietly.

“I -“ Francis runs his hands over his sleep-mussed hair. James does not miss the tremor in them. “Christ. You - you’re unharmed, then.”

James spreads his arms, offering visual proof. “As you see. Not a scratch.” He attempts a smile, weak as it is.

“But - you might have been. You -"

He trails off and James replays the slow-paced circle Francis made around Morfin, a dowsing stone of protection.

“But I wasn’t,” he says. 

Francis breathes out unsteadily, gaze traveling over James as if needing the evidence of his own eyes. He nods to himself. “Morfin was - a good sailor. A good man. Deserved a better end.” 

“ _Are_ there better ends?” The question surprises James even as he says it, and Francis looks at him sharply. He doesn’t answer, even though James wants him to. Wants someone else to tell the story for a change - wants Francis to speak to him of glory, of chances taken, of purpose.

But what if - what if there are no better ends. For any of them, not here or anywhere else. What if there are just endings, each one ugly in its own way ( _someone will remember us,_ James insists to himself, _and it will matter.)_

He can’t say any of that out loud, so instead he takes a step closer to Francis. Then another. There’s no reason why two small steps should seem so full of risk, but James feels as if he’s walking on the newly frozen surface of a lake, not knowing which patch of ice will crack beneath his weight. Not knowing which step will send him plummeting into the dark. 

Francis stares at him, eyes wide and frantic. “I don’t know,” he murmurs, whether to himself or James, it isn’t clear. “I don’t know." He shakes his head.

James wants to touch him.

He’s close enough now, so he puts a hand on Francis’s shoulder, unsure of its welcome. It's fine, he tells himself. Francis has done the same for him. Touched him in comfort after Carnivale, offered him a hand up to the crest of a hill. Always innocent gestures, brotherly. There's nothing untoward about it. Nothing damning.

Hand still tight on the man’s shoulder, James drops to one knee. Now he can look up into Francis’ face, study the lines around his eyes and across his forehead. Study the white of his open collar against the pale skin of his throat.

“You need not carry this alone,” James says. They are nearly the same words that Francis gave him once, and the captain makes an indecipherable face at the sound of them, something between pain and derision. Something bleak and hard as stone (single musket ball, size of a cherry). 

“Not alone,” Francis says and James nods in agreement. It's true, isn't it? He is in it until the end, whenever that may be. Tomorrow or two days or two years from now. Francis will not be alone so long as James is there to follow him.

He squeezes Francis’s shoulder, prepared to let his hand drop. But as he does - something happens.

It is a simple thing, innocent. James’ thumb catches on the collar of Francis’ shirt, pushing it down so that there is the barest moment of contact between his thumb and Francis’ neck. It is unintentional. It only lasts a second. And it goes through Francis like an electric shock.

James notices.

On his knees before the man, he notices everything: Francis shivers, releases a slight puff of breath, flinches just slightly towards James’ hand. His expression shifts immediately to alarm, and James stares up at him, not knowing what to do or say, only knowing that _good God_ , Francis Crozier has not nearly been touched enough in his life.

The thought makes breathing significantly more difficult. 

James has no excuse the second time. Perhaps he could blame adrenaline and exhaustion, but the truth is that he wants to see if Francis shivers again, and he wants to be the cause of it. He moves his thumb, barely a movement at all but it brushes the pale line of Francis’ throat. 

Francis gasps.

They stare at each other. James’ heart is pounding in his chest, and he waits for the inevitable reaction, the shove backwards, the shrug aside. (“You’re not yourself, James.”)

(“Get some sleep, James.”)

(“What are you - how dare you, don’t _touch_ me -”)

But Francis says nothing. And James - who has frozen hands and lungs full of flower petals - traces smooth, warm skin with his thumb, hooks it just beneath the collar of Francis’ shirt, tugging it away from his neck.

Francis exhales through his nostrils, turning his head to the side, looking away. His eyes close tightly as if he cannot bear to keep them open. Is it disgust? James does not think it is disgust.

“Francis,” James says, because he has to say something. How could a man like Francis have skin so soft? James’ hand feels drunk from this bare amount of contact, fingertips soaked in whisky. “Francis, I -” He sweeps his thumb below the neck of Francis’ shirt, tracing his collarbone.

He could stop, he could. Francis could tell him to stop and James would drop his hand, would cleave it off if asked plainly. But Francis doesn’t tell him to stop. The man is taking short, shivering breaths and James’ lungs are on fire and he wants to keep touching him. Who needs air when he has this warm skin beneath his palm?

His hand is suddenly bolder, tracing fingers up the side of Francis’ neck, petting a few strands of hair where they curl behind his ear. Francis is so still, a statue carved from ice, but James does not miss the leap of his pulse in his throat. If James moves his hand, just - _there_ , he’ll be able to feel it beating beneath his thumb. _Alive, alive, alive,_ after everything that’s happened. _T_ _hank God, thank God for that._

“You can.” Francis’ eyes are still closed, lips barely moving around the words. It’s so quiet that at first James thinks he imagined the sound. But no, Francis is speaking. “If you - would.”

James would.

“Only if you -” Francis continues, “You needn’t, but if -” and he’s shaking and James cannot wait another moment. 

“Hush,” he says, rising up on his knees. He gently pushes Francis’ coat from his shoulders, settling it over the back of the chair. Francis keeps his eyes closed. “It’s all right.”

“You don’t -”

“It’s all right,” James murmurs, fingers on the buttons of Francis’ collar. He leans in so the other man’s thighs are bracketing his waist, and each inch of neck that is revealed to him is a new world to discover, to categorize and record and adore. He follows his fingers with his mouth, pressing hot and sharp down the line of Francis’ throat to his chest, the barest hint of blond chest hair (almost strawberry blond, unexpectedly delicious) rasping against his tongue.

“Christ,” Francis hisses, hands clenching into fists at his sides. James won't have that.

“Can I?” he asks, dropping back to sit on his heels. His hands go still at the waist of Francis’ breeches, not knowing where the words ‘you can’ might end.

Francis opens his eyes at last. They are foggy and a bit wild, skipping like stones across James’ face. James has not been in a position to seduce anyone in a long time. He wants to do it now. Hopes he remembers how it’s done (he was handsome once.)

“You should let me.” His hands travel up Francis’ thighs until they reach the hardness between them. Francis hisses a breath at the contact, hips helplessly lifting for more of it. James traces the shape of Francis’ cock through his breeches, presses down with the heel of his palm until Francis bites back a cry. The heat is nearly unbearable, the man must ache with it.

“Please,” James says, and then - because he’s absolutely shameless when he is on his knees: “Captain.”

“Fucking - _fuck_.” Francis’ hand is finally on James’ shoulder, squeezing helplessly, tugging him forward. 

Thank God for that. James has Francis' laces undone in moments, his shirt pushed up and out of the way so that James' hands can slide beneath wool and linen to find skin. James expects the soft swell of a stomach but he finds only ribs and muscle and loose skin, the body of a man who could use a year of good meals. There is more coarse red-blond hair on Francis’ abdomen, and James mouths at it, bites his hip bones, follows the smell of the ocean down down down to the bottom of the sea -

Francis is silent as James takes him in his mouth, but a lovely tremor shivers through him, and James feels it against his skin like sunlight. He has missed this, has missed touch. Has missed touching. His mouth is gentle around the head of Francis’s cock, tongue pressing flat against the fluid leaking from him (the man is _wet_ for me, James thinks dizzily, for _me_ ). He wishes he had more room, more time, wishes he could push Francis’s breeches to the floor and spread his legs. Lick the crease of his hip and thigh, go deeper, get his fingers and his tongue in him, feast like a starving man.

But this is what he has. And it's so much more than enough.

He pulls off of Francis’s cock to meet his gaze, clears his throat before he can speak.

“Your hands,” he whispers, and Francis stares at him. “My - my hair.”

Then he drags his tongue roughly from base of the man's cock to its head. He sinks back down as Francis’s hands do as they’re told, curve themselves gently (too gently) against his skull. This is what he loves, what he’s always loved. It should be debasing, perhaps, but instead it feels beautiful. A kindness, a gift that Francis would let him do this. Francis’ hips thrust once, tentatively, and James moans as his throat is filled. He wishes he could speak, wishes he could beg and suck at the same time (“ _please, please_ -“) but he won’t lift his head for anything now. He wants to feel Francis at the back of his throat, wants bruises on his neck, wants all the flowers in his lungs to tremble and wilt at the knowledge that this man wants him.

Francis smooths James’ hair back and away from his face, tilting his head so that he can see James’ mouth closing around him, see the outline of his cock against James’ cheek. 

“There,” Francis murmurs, one fist still clenched in James’ hair. “There. Good - good lad.”

James glances up at him, catches his eye as he pulls entirely off and then slowly lowers his mouth again. Francis looks at him with alarm, shakes his head faintly, holds a little tighter to James’ hair with one hand. His other hand travels over James’ face, his cheek, a thumb touches his lips - 

-and then Francis is tugging him off.

“What -”

There is a gentle hand on his shoulder, stilling him.

“You’re cold,” Francis says, “Your skin - it's freezing.”

“I’m fine.” James is overheated if anything, sweat prickling at the nape of his neck.

“You shouldn’t be on the ground.” 

James sits back on his knees, confused. There is a blush of colour on Francis’ face, blotchy and bright, His cock is wet from James' mouth and impossibly hard between his legs. He hesitates for a moment, before gesturing awkwardly behind himself. Motioning to his bed.

“Perhaps we should -” 

Oh God. The man wants to -

Wants to -

James is surprised by the twist of fear in his stomach. Beds are soft, and he does not do well with soft things. The blankets will smell like Francis and then James will smell like him too. Sharing a bed is too much like sharing a history, too close to being invited inside.

Francis straightens his clothing, rises from the chair. He offers James a hand up off the ground like a gentleman (there is a single petal at the back of James’ throat, and he swallows it silently).

“All right,” he says. He takes Francis’ hand, lets himself be helped to his feet. Then he pulls his sweater off over his head.

Francis stares at him. James did not expect the heat in the other man's gaze, and he has to look away as he peels off the rest of his layers. He is afraid of what he’ll see in Francis' face as more of his body is revealed. He wants to tell Francis that he used to be more than ribs and shadowy bruises, a body gone to waste. He briefly wishes Francis might have wanted him then, during those first months at sea. He wishes the man could have seen him at his best.

But their story did not go like that, not in this telling of it.

James climbs into Francis’ narrow bed and pulls the rough blankets up to his chin, colder than he expected. The blankets scratch against his skin but the feeling is oddly grounding; he's alive, alive to be prickly and uncomfortable. Alive and in this bed.

Francis extinguishes the lamp, and James lets him. He wants to see Francis but he isn’t sure whether he wants to be seen himself. Perhaps the darkness will make it easier for both of them. Francis can pretend James is any number of different people. James can pretend he is still worth looking at.

In the darkness, he listens for Francis’ quiet footsteps, the rustling of fabric, a sharp intake of breath. There is a smack of cold air on James’ skin as the blankets are pulled back and then a warm body is climbing in to press on top of him. 

Francis, that bastard, has kept his shirtsleeves on. There is not enough skin for James to swoon against, but the weight and the warmth are glorious, a delicious crush. James basks in it.

“Christ, the feel of you,” Francis whispers to his collarbone, “I can’t - ”

His hands skim over James’ ribs and chest, quick to go where he wants them most. He’s been hard since he got to his knees and Francis is not shy, tugging at his pubic hair, getting a fist around him, swirling his thumb through slickness until James’ back arches helplessly.

“God - God -"

“The smell of you,” Francis murmurs, “You’ve no idea.” He grinds down against James’ hip. “What do you want?”

James wants everything. He is a match that’s been struck, from phosphorus to flame in an instant, burning through the bedsheets. He feels twenty years younger, desperate with wanting things, beyond all shame. 

“I - I want -”

He wants to breathe easily again, to not choke on petals all night and gasp for air all day. He wants clear lungs and a heart that only belongs to him, just to him. He wants to feel something other than cold and hungry and frightened and inadequate for an hour, a minute, a moment.

He wants Francis. Unbelievable but true. His body may be broken but it is somehow full of light; he is liquid with it, and his legs fall open helplessly, a want inside him that’s powerful and deadly in its urgency.

“I want you here,” James whispers. “Here. I want -“ He’s breathing too fast, so dizzy it's dangerous. “Please.”

Francis goes very still above him. Then there is a hand on his throat in the darkness, a calloused palm dragging over his neck to thumb at his suprasternal notch, tighten on the curve of his shoulder.

“Jesus.” Francis’ voice is rough, his breath warm against James’ mouth. ”I don’t -”

“But - you have?”

There’s the corpse of a laugh, buried deep. “Years back.” Francis presses his mouth against James’ neck, a kiss without teeth, a kiss that won’t leave footprints. “Your skin. _God_ , James -“

“You can.” James tries to slow his breathing but his chest is still heaving at the thought of it. Being taken, being filled, being cared for - here at the end of the world. “Please.”

“You’d wake the bloody camp,” Francis murmurs against his jaw. “A man like you can’t be quiet.”

“Known a lot of men like me, have you?” James smiles in the darkness, tilting his neck back for more.

There are hands in his hair, still gentler than he’d prefer, and a rough cheek pressed against his own.

“No,” Francis says softly, and James kisses him.

He doesn’t mean for it to happen. Suddenly his head is turning and their mouths are pressed together. They are open and searching immediately, as if they have kissed before, and so many times. Nothing is tentative, nothing is gentle. There is a familiar and easy passion in it, and James did not expect it.

Neither does he expect to enjoy it as much as he does. Francis’ hands are so warm on his face, his thin mouth somehow lush as he sucks on James’ lower lip. James hasn’t had much interest in this sort of thing in the past, didn’t think kissing would ever distract him from the business of being fucked, but God help him - he would do this for hours if they had time. 

What a ridiculous thing to think (add it to the list of ridiculous things that James has recently come to learn about himself).

“Francis,” James whispers when they finally part for air. There is an ache inside him and it’s spreading. Every time they touch he’s being split more and more in half. “Please.”

“All right, all right -"

There is oil from somewhere; Francis leaves the bed silently to fetch it. Then there are slick hands on his thighs, Francis’ mouth on his chest and his stomach as he pushes his legs apart, whispering “Christ,” to the back of his knee. 

When a finger slides inside him, James hisses out a breath. 

It has been years since someone else touched him like this. Were it any other voyage, he might have found someone on the ship who was willing and discreet, but on this one his attention was elsewhere. He was focused, he took care of his own needs and he didn’t miss it and he wasn’t - wasn’t lonely -

“God in heaven, _Francis,_ ” he gasps at the sudden perfect angle, a pleasure he feels throbbing in him like a heartbeat.

“There we are,” Francis breathes against his breast bone. “I have you.”

“Please. Just - please.”

“Greedy thing.” A hot tongue licks over the hair on his stomach, swirls around his naval. “You taste like salt.”

James snorts. “Like sweat and dirt, more like.”

“Like the sea,” Francis murmurs, and then adds another finger, enough to set James’ back arching.

“Fuck, fuck -“

“You said you could be quiet.”

“I said - no such - thing.” Even so, James bites down on his lips, breaking the skin as Francis twists his fingers just so. There is a mortifying sound from between his legs, slick and tight and impossibly wet. “God, I’m ready. I swear -“

“You’re not.” Another wet kiss of Francis’ tongue against his stomach, another tentative press of fingers. “And I’ll not hurt you.”

Francis will not be rushed, takes James apart with his fingers for what feels like the rest of his life. By the time he is satisfied, James is right on the edge of ruin, harder than he thought he could be in his current state, and shaking with desire. Francis is gentle with him, murmuring nonsense against his skin that James never expected to hear from such a man.

“Gorgeous.” Francis hooks James’ leg over his shoulder, hushes his moan with a dry press of lips. “Hush, lad. I’ve got you.”

“Please -”

“Shhhhhh.” At the first steady push of Francis inside him, James tilts his head back, pressing a fist against his mouth. He’s been ready for ages, but it’s still so much and it’s been so long - 

“You - _beauty_ ,” Francis whispers, shuddering. There is a desperate scatter of kisses against his chin and neck.

“Harder.” James bites at Francis’ ear.

“No.”

“ _Yes,_ ” James insists, tilting his hips up, stretching his arms above his head. “Yes, I won’t break -”

“This bed might.”

James frantically tries to shove his hips forward, take more of Francis, and Francis goes very still. Drops one hand to James’ hip, pinning him in place even as he trembles.

“What - no -”

“Easy.” There’s an edge in Francis’ voice, despite the gentleness of his hands. “I’ll set the pace, all right. You lie back.”

“Francis -”

“Shhh…” The kisses on James’ neck are softer, slower now, and it’s terrifying. How is he supposed to bear this if it doesn’t hurt? If it isn’t frantic and rushed and desperate? He tilts his head back and Francis licks into his mouth as if he’s meant to be there. The man can’t seem to stop kissing him and James parts his lips, lets himself be ravished like a maid.

At last, there is the barest thrust of hips between James’ thighs, not giving him nearly the force that he wants, but there’s something satisfying in it just the same. He takes it, he’d take more if it was given, and Francis moans softly around his tongue. They rock slowly against each other, a ship on gentle waves, and it shouldn’t make pleasure flare hot and deep along James’ spine, it shouldn’t kindle something at his core, leaving him opened mouthed and speechless -

But somehow it does. With each gentle nudge of Francis’ cock, James finds himself wound tighter. Tighter. Tighter even still, to the point where his hands are clenched on Francis’ hips and he knows they must be leaving bruises. He can’t believe he hasn’t shouted yet (thank God for that, he knows what the men would think if they heard him - and why does that somehow make him harder, make this hotter, make his thighs spread in welcome of the man fucking into him -).

“Look at me,” Francis hisses, though James doubts either of them can see anything much in this darkness. Francis twists his hand in James’ hair, tilting his head back. James thinks he may just be able to make out the shine of Francis’ eyes above him, the uncanny flicker of his pale hair in whatever light it can find. “You gorgeous thing.”

His thrusts increase only slightly, it’s all too soft and wet and slow, but James is still dying from it.

“Is this what you’ve been wanting? Is this what you need?”

“I need -”

“What?

“Kiss me again.”

Francis does, but not before he gets a hand between them, slow and tight around James’ cock and that’s it. It’s over after the first brush of fingertips, the first bruising kiss. James spends in Francis’ hand, gasping into his mouth, frantic and blinded by the brilliance of it. Francis’ hips stutter as he feels it happen, then he thrusts in deep, holding himself there, pushing James through a second wave of pleasure, impossible and too good and _too much, too much -_

“Ah, ah - _ah_ -” The smallest sounds escape James’ throat as Francis stills inside him, kisses his neck over and over in small, featherlight bites. He gives James only a moment to recover, to sigh sweetly, before slowly pulling out of him.

“You haven’t -” James slurs, drunk with feeling.

“Hush now." There is the quiet sound of skin against skin, the frantic motion of Francis’ fist shaking the bed. “ _Oh,_ you lovely - lovely thing, just - there. Christ. There.” Francis exhales, shaking as he finds his own release (heat scattering in drops and pulses over James’ abdomen like - 

Well. Like something other than it is. Red and wet and _damn it_ , James is sick to death of metaphors.)

They lie together in the near total darkness, finally still. James feels Francis’ wild heartbeat against his breastbone, counts the beat of it like a waltz in a candlelit room ( _1_ -2-3, _1_ -2-3.)

They do not kiss again.

Francis re-lights the lantern before James goes, so that he does not need to dress in the darkness. He can’t imagine what he looks like and he avoids Francis’ gaze. His hands are clumsy and legs unsteady; he feels like he's been struck with an axe clean in the centre of his chest and he’s breaking open, seawater spilling everywhere.

He risks one glance at Francis before he leaves, standing in the doorway of the tent. The man’s lips are swollen (kissed to fullness). His hair stands at odd angles, like rumpled straw. It should be amusing to see him looking so disheveled, but strangely enough - it only makes James want to touch him. Want him more, again, if such a thing were possible.

He has no idea what to say.

“Goodnight,” Francis says for him. James doesn’t think his eyes have ever looked so blue. 

“Goodnight.”

He heads out into the cold to find his bed.

_(Take this story forward. You don't need to go far, only a handful of hours. Enough to find James waking up in his bed, choking on petals._

_It has happened before. He has managed to cough himself clean every time. But this time is different; he cannot find air enough to cough. There are a few desperate moments where the world goes white, and he thinks - truly - that it is the end. He has no profound insights or revelations in the moment, only terror and grief and more terror, pounding in his chest like cannon fire._

_But then the moment passes. The knot of flowers in his throat dislodges itself._

_And he realizes he's going to die from this._

_James hangs off the edge of his bed, spits petals and blood onto the ground until his heartbeat slows. As he gasps for air, blood rushing to his head, he feels the sudden urge to laugh. The wretched sound breaks from his split lips, sliding down his chin like saliva tinted the pink of English roses._

_He’s going to die like this. He laughs again, and chokes on it._

_In a land that wants them dead, violence and sickness creeping in at all sides, James Fitzjames is going to suffocate on flower petals._

_It is so entirely absurd - and yet somehow completely fitting. This, this will be the end of him. All his glorious purpose, all his heroic plans, and he's going to waste away from flowers._

_He can't imagine what Francis would say to that._ _He's not the sort of man who’d have any use for flowers, is he? James allows himself the mad fantasy of coming upon Francis in Kensington Gardens. Offering his arm and a handful of poesies_ _tied with twine, a proper gentlemanly suitor. “Would you walk with me?” he might ask._

_Even in the fantasy, Francis shakes his head in distaste, lets the flowers fall to the path untouched. (“A fine sense of humour you have.”) Tramples them underfoot as he walks away._

_Flowers are about as useful to starving men as stories are. Uselessness upon uselessness, the tale of James Fitzjames, and nothing on Heaven or Earth to be done for it._

_He laughs until he cries until he coughs himself hoarse, and so the night passes_.)

The morning after is almost shocking in its normalcy. Aside from a keen glance from the icemaster (that James desperately attempts to ignore) the world seems unchanged. The sky is bright, and Francis is once again calm and decisive. He catches James’ eye across the table during their command meeting, grins as Jopson is promoted to lieutenant. It is charming and unexpected, and James tries not to feel too warm at the look of pride on Francis’ face.

Their walk to the cairn is almost amicable, as if nothing at all transpired the night before. James can feel the awareness of heat on his cheekbones, but he manages to carry on something of a conversation. He is only slightly sore, a pleasant reminder that last night was not a dream. But he is more than a little out of breath over the course of the easy journey. It's impossible not to notice his wheezing, the lags in conversation where he cannot speak and breathe at the same time.

On the way back to camp, over leagues of dove-grey stone (the rattling sound of his boots against it will haunt James until the day he dies) Francis mentions it.

“Have you spoken to the doctor?”

James flinches, though not with surprise. He knows what he looks like. He knows how obvious it's become. “Of course.”

“And?”

“Nothing unfamiliar to a sailor."

Francis’ nod is grim. James lets him draw his own conclusions. 

“Have you contended with it ever?”

“No.”

“And now?”

“I - can’t be certain.”

That is an alarming thought. Here in the harsh sunlight, Francis looks as hale as he ever has. James does not want to think about a lingering illness, slowly chewing through his muscles, stealing his strength from him. 

James wants Francis to live.

He tells him stories to distract him. War stories, stories that paint James in a terribly unflattering light, but at least Francis laughs. The sound makes James feel three years younger, a man first setting foot on their lost and lovely ships. He still remembers what it was like to crave Francis’ approval, remembers when that was one of his primary concerns. Back then, there were no monsters on the horizon creeping closer. There were no blossoms in his lungs, and his breath was not perfumed by them, cloying and sweet as decay.

The James from three years ago would have preened at Francis’ regard. James still feels the pull of it, like sunlight.

“I was quick to wish the world rid of its fools an hour ago,” he says quickly, before he can give any more thought to the man he was and will never be again. “I forget how much of an exemplar I am among them.”

Francis frowns at the comment. “That’s not how I see you.” 

There’s something quietly earnest in the words, and James feels an unexpected tightness in his throat ( _he sees you_ ). He swallows until he can speak again. 

And when he can speak, something terrible happens. Worse than terrible, something _true_ :

“I am a fake, brother.”

The words surprise him. James never wanted to tell this story, God, not this one. But once the words start, they cannot be stopped. Somehow he is speaking of his past - his father’s affair, the scandal of his birth and his upbringing. Everything he has kept locked away for so long, lain out at the feet of the man he least wants to hear it.

“Even my name was made up for my baptism. James Fitzjames." He feels each word like another musket shot, the pain of it staggering as it brings him closer and closer to the whole of his story. "Like a bad pun. I’m not even fully English.”

There’s a part of him (a scuttling hard-shelled part, long nurtured in dark places) that is screaming at James to stop. A part of him that’s calculating what can still be salvaged, how he can turn the story around, make it into another pretty lie. Quickly, quickly. Stop speaking, it's not too late -

“I didn’t know any of that,” Francis says.

“I’ve - never said it out loud before now.” There’s only a few metres of stone between them. James feels like they are standing on the axle of a ship’s wheel. The centre of everything, yet wholly unable to move.

“It’s all vanity. It always has been.” He was beautiful once, before too many long winters ate away at the shine of him. He takes the memory in his hands, releases it into the cold (let it be lucky and die of exposure.) “And we are at the end of vanity.”

For some reason, that makes Francis smile. He comes forward to touch his shoulder, shake him gently. “Then you are free.” 

When did James start crying? He doesn't know. Tears are slowly running down his face, clinging to the edge of his jaw. He lets them fall.

He wonders if Francis would want to kiss him again, now that he knows that James is a snivelling lie of a man. He wonders if Francis will ever think back on their night together, months after James has suffocated to death (his body feeding animals and growing lichens if he’s lucky. Oh God, let him be a beautiful green corpse.)

He wonders if Francis will mourn him. 

“Mine your courage from a different lode now.” Francis is still looking at him, eyes bright. His hand is warm on James' shoulder, and his face is lined and lovely, and he has never been ordinary a day in his life, James was wrong, he was so -

_Oh - God._

_Damn_ _Goodsir_ , James thinks with a sudden viciousness. _And damn his own lungs and damn this place and damn every peony in the known bloody world, may they all rot._

He's in love.

James sucks in a breath of air as the knowledge hits him.

He's in love. With this man.

For the first time in his life.

The feeling spills from his eyes, tears streaking through the dust of his ruined face. They sting his lips as they fall, taking all the words he wants to say with them.

Francis will never know. James makes the decision in the space of a heartbeat: he will never tell him. For however long he has left, James will keep this knowledge folded in his pocket like a love note. He will keep the burden of his love and his life off of Francis' shoulders. 

The decision doesn't pain him, not at all. It feels easy. Right. He will die with at least one story still left in his mouth. 

When they get back to camp, the Marines are running. 

_(You can move quickly past this next part: Mr. Farr and Lieutenant Irving and the family that fed him. The beast and the men lost, pointless death upon more pointless death. The mutiny and the desertion and their only doctor taken with them._

_Linger for just a moment on James in his tent when the fog finally clears, examining his injuries. See the odd green shift beneath the fine veins in his hands, like slowly creeping vines. Feel the jagged edge of leaves pushing through scars he thought long healed._

_You could end the story here, if you like. There's so much blood in the rest of it, and it's coming on quickly. Sometimes that's the way of endings, sometimes they surprise us._

_Perhaps we are born thinking we are infinite, confident there will be time, more time and yet more still._

_Time to fix things._ _To get well. To go home._

_And because we believe this about time, we waste it. Leave important things unspoken, trapped behind our teeth with the honeyed promise of tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that._

_Today, though: James begins to grow dizzy even while standing still._

_Today: he goes from a man with polished boots pulling their possessions along the rocky path to a man on his knees on the ground. He is suddenly a body being helped to his feet, laid gently in a boat with the other dying men. He is suddenly meat, rotten through._

_“There is time,” Francis tells him. His face is impossibly kind as he leans in close. “There is time.” But there’s something troubled in his eyes, a tremor of pain at the edge of his mouth._

_“I’m sorry,” James manages, lack of air making him dizzy, the ache in his chest radiating throughout his body until he is just a star made of it._

_We can end things here, before the worst happens._

_Unless you’d like to tell this story differently. It’s your story, after all._

_There is time.)_

It seems like mere moments between James' collapse and the end of things. He forgets where he is, forgets how to speak, can only cry out in pain until Francis calls for them to make camp. 

He loses track of days then, cannot tell how long it’s been since Francis had a hand on his throat, in his mouth, in his hair - that happened, didn’t it? James wishes there were marks still left on him from that night. Proof that it was real, and not just a figment of his longing. Proof that he could be touched. 

Dying of flowers should be beautiful, but it isn’t. He is not pale and languid on a velvet couch. He is struggling to breathe and unable to swallow in a tent. He smells like death and rot and rosewater, and he sweats no matter how many times Mister Bridgens wipes his brow clean.

Francis cannot seem to stop checking in on him, murmuring questions that Bridgens answers in a low, sad voice. James would almost prefer the captain's absence. He doesn’t want to be seen like this. Wishes he had the strength to get up and drag himself across those miles of stone, let the elements have him. 

“Don’t -” James says, _don’t let him see_ , but he cannot manage the rest of it.

He dreams that Bridgens is leaning over him, wiping away the red petals that cling to his chin with blood and saliva.

He dreams he is in a house made of ice and all the edges cut him as he passes from beautifully appointed room to beautifully appointed room.

He dreams he is in a concert hall and Francis is there in uniform, raising a glass and smiling. He dreams there is medicine going down his throat and he is coughing it back up and everything aches, his body crushed by the pack with no way out, no rescue, no heroes and no stories and no happy endings -

(“Fine weather, isn’t it?” Francis comments idly. The sunlight is caught in his hair, turning it unexpectedly honey-coloured. 

Where are they? A park. A garden. There is a peony pinned to Francis’ coat, and his mouth is very soft.

“Would you walk with me?” James asks, offering his arm. Francis gives him a sly look, one James hasn’t seen in a very long time. 

“Offering your services to a feeble old man?” Francis says and James laughs.

“Yes, of course. Do you also require a blanket for your shoulders? The chill in this air -”

“Ah, get away with you,” Francis grumbles, but his hand is at the crook of James’ elbow, a warm and steady weight. “I should’ve known you’d be insufferable. The pretty ones always are.”

“The pretty ones?” James smirks, and Francis rolls his eyes at him. He rolls his eyes even more at the sight of the small bouquet in James’ hand.

“What in God’s name is that?”

“A woman was selling them while I was waiting. And I know how much you appreciate -”

“Stop -”

“These tokens of my endless affection and esteem -”

“A joke at my expense, more like.” Francis does not drop his arm, however, and his scowl is a gentle one. “Give them here.”

James does. Watches Francis hold the twine-wrapped bundle to his nose, and inhale. His cheeks are stained pink.

“An incurable romantic, you are,” Francis says after a moment, and he’s right. There is no cure.)

“Leave us Mr. Bridgens.”

For a moment, James thinks he is still dreaming. But no, no. That is Francis’ voice.

“It was an honour serving you sir.” Bridgens is weeping, somewhere to his right. Poor fellow. “You were a good man. There will be poems.”

Poems. God no. _No more poetry,_ James tries to say, but the shape of it hurts his mouth. Instead he lies there, struggling to stay in the awful moment, and not slide back into another dream. 

Francis kneels beside his bed. He is here, and James is here, and Francis never walked beside him in Hyde Park. Wouldn't it have been lovely if he had? 

“Francis, help me. Help me. Help me out of it.” James could do worse than having Francis be the last thing he sees, and he doesn't want to die like this. There may be no glory in it, but at least there won't be pain. Francis stares at him, stricken with grief, lamplight yellowing his eyes and -

“How could you have been so stupid.”

James was not expecting that.

“ _How._ ” Francis demands, biting off the word like it’s a finger in his mouth.

“I’m - dying?” James barely manages, shocked. It’s almost nice to feel that familiar outrage again, where Francis is concerned. James wasn’t certain he still could.

“Aye, I know. And I know what you’re dying from.”

James tries to sit up but Francis puts a hand on his chest. Barely any strength behind it at all, but James has no energy to struggle against it.

“I read the doctor’s journals. Goodsir’s journals.” 

“F-Francis -"

“I thought maybe there’d be something that could help you, some idea of his. Instead I find pages of this absolute - madness.”

Petals are scattered across James’ nightshirt, caught in his blankets and spilling onto the floor. Francis seems to register them all at once, leaning back from the bed as if horrified. Both hands going to his hair and his eyes squeeze shut. He stays frozen like that for a moment, just breathing. 

James watches him.

“Tell me the man, then. Give me his name.” Francis still doesn’t move. “I’ll bring him here at damned gunpoint if that’s what it takes. Do you understand me? I’ll not lose you to this.”

Each gasp of air feels like a matchstick in James’ throat. Each shift of his ribs tugs at the plasters holding him together. He says nothing. He would rather die than have Francis love him out of pity or obligation.

He reaches out, unsteadily, until he can just brush the side of Francis' face with his fingertips. Francis looks up, and takes James' hand in both of his. His palms are dry and cracked, but the touch is so gentle that James wants to smile. He would if his mouth didn't hurt so much.

Who knew that loving someone could feel like this? Not terrifying or painful at all, not ugly or full of risk. Just soft. Safe. 

James never expected - he never thought. What a shame he just discovered this now. That he wasn’t able to enjoy the warmth of it for longer. 

“I’ll not lose you,” Francis says again. “Tell me.”

James can feel him shaking. He watches Francis lower his head, studies the pink of his hairline. 

Feels the heat of dry lips against his knuckles.

A kiss.

“What if - _I_ did,” Francis murmurs to his fist, so quiet it’s barely audible. 

The words make James jolt in bed, a shudder running through him, beginning at his wrist and traveling like a current across his skin.

“Could that -" Francis' lips hardly move against James' hand. "Could that ever be - enough.”

Somehow a sound rasps from James’ throat, something pained and shocking. Francis raises his head in alarm.

"What is it?"

“You - don’t," James barely manages, the words leaving him almost breathless with effort.

Francis' face has gone expressionless. “You’re not serious.” 

"You -" James can feel his own heartbeat getting faster and louder, like the footsteps of a great beast approaching.

“You _know_ this. You -”

James cannot speak. There is something in his throat, but it isn’t petals. It might be tears. It might be - 

“How could this - possibly have escaped you?” Francis asks, voice cracking, “ _How._ Months, James, _years,_ how could you not have -”

He doesn’t finish, leaning forward and pressing their mouths together. His lips taste like salt, and James feels a great wrenching pain between his ribs, something coming loose. His heart is a ship breaking free from ice, turning toward open water. 

“How does it work,” Francis holds James’ face between his shaking hands. “Are the words enough? If I say it -”

“I don’t -” The words shouldn’t matter, people say them all the time. They say them and then they take them back, they aren’t as charmed as we believe. They’re like cut flowers, and they last as long.

Love cannot heal an open wound. Cannot wipe the blood from James’ mouth.

“I love you,” Francis says, and it should not matter. But it does. “You’ll not leave me here.”

Love shouldn’t make breathing easier, make swallowing suddenly possible. It shouldn’t give James the strength to brush a hand down Francis’ neck. He can feel the man’s pulse for a moment beneath his fingertips. Alive. Alive.

“God wants you to _live_ , James. He wants you to live.” 

Love cannot save them.

_(But this is your story. You can tell it as you like._ )

When Bridgens returns to the tent, he does not find the sight he was expecting. Instead, he finds them sleeping. Francis’ head is on James’ chest ( the rise and fall of a kind sea).

“Commander Fitzjames is back among us,” Francis tells the lieutenants the next morning. And each day James breathes a little easier. And each day he aches a little less. And each night Francis comes to his tent, presses their foreheads together against the chill, and whispers “stay.”

_Tell me what happens next._

_Perhaps with James by his side, the story could end differently. Francis is still taken captive, but James leads the rescue party himself. (_ “He would come for us, for any one of us. You know this. Our best chance of survival lies not to the south, but with our captain.” _) Perhaps they rescue the doctor as well, and with his skill, more of their ranks are kept alive longer. Long enough for Silna to find them, long enough to reach open water._

_Perhaps they stay alive in a land that wants them dead, perhaps James takes Francis’ frozen hands in his, breathes against the knuckles of them._

_And when James Ross finds them, when their rescue finally comes, Ross embraces Francis as an old friend (something aches in James’s ribs, a bullet wound, a thorn scar, but no matter)._

_And later, much later, perhaps there is mild weather. A garden in England, in the south. They might grow roses (not peonies). They might linger over cups of tea and fall asleep too early. Or they might sleep too late, wasting time by the fistful simply because they have it._

_Perhaps they have time, some day. In this story. The one that you tell._

_The man James loves is beautiful and kisses him beneath an archway of jasmine and clematis. He takes his arm. He says all the words that shouldn’t matter (but they do) and James deserves every one of them._

_Is this the right ending? A better one?_

_Their summer cannot last forever, on the ice or in a garden. Look there at the long shadows, tugging themselves across the floor by their broken fingernails. Look there at the brown-edged leaves outside the window, the darkening petal of sky._

_Autumn comes for all of us, and winter too. Put off one bad ending, and you’ll only find another one._

_But perhaps love can be found in the re-telling._

_Perhaps there is a place for flowers, even in days like these._

_So light the candles and tell us a story. It doesn’t have to be a love story (but it can be. It probably is). End it wherever you like._

_Others can plant it, and tend it, and pass it on._

_Over and over and over again. It will bloom._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm Mia-ugly on Tumblr. Come say hi (if you like.)


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